The Sudan Handbook

170 thE sudan handbook

however, the NCP – even with Turabi at the helm – did not have a lot

of power or clear control over the affairs of the state. More crucially, it

did not have a clear status vis-a-vis the state institutions despite the

fact that the majority of the state officials and parliamentarians were

NCP members. As NCP secretary-general, Turabi tried to give the party

some substance as a ruling party. In other words, he tried to impose the

party’s control over the state and its officials, including the president of

the republic. Turabi, however, did not have his way; less than a year after

his election as NCP secretary-general he was confronted with an internal

revolt from his own inner circle of aides, many of whom were considered

among his most loyal disciples. The revolt took the form of an internal

memorandum submitted by ten senior figures within the party and the

state to the NCP Shura council on 10 December 1998. The memo, which

was adopted by the Shura council, proposed a reform package through

which President al-Bashir was given effective leadership of the NCP

as the party’s chairman. On the other hand, the authority of the NCP

secretary-general, Turabi, was radically curbed and reduced to adminis-

trative and secretarial tasks. The Memo of Ten – as it came to be known

• triggered an internal dispute within the NCP that eventually led to the
  party’s split in mid-2000.
  Turabi, who was elected Speaker of the National Assembly in 1996,
  used that position as well as his influence within the Islamist constitu-
  ency to launch a two-pronged attack aimed at regaining his influence in
  the party and state. At the level of the ruling party, Turabi and his loyal-
  ists launched a campaign of grass roots mobilization in preparation for
  the NCP ‘constituent conference’, which was eventually held in October

1999. Turabi and his loyalists carried the day. The conference revoked
      most of the Memo of Ten’s reforms, adopted a new Statute for the NCP
      that restored control to the secretary-general, whose loyalists dominated
      the newly elected Shura Council, and relegated President al-Bashir to
      the position of a party chairman without any significant powers. And
      all the signatories of the Memo of Ten failed to get elected to a new
      600-member Shura Council. At the National Assembly, Turabi designed

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors a package of constitutional amendments aimed primarily at curbing

(www.riftvalley.net).